Teen Titans

Why does Robin wear green scale-mail underpants?

"Back in my day,” say the oldest of the old-school gamers, “all we had was the local arcade, and we loved it! We happily dropped 25 cents a game to get our asses handed to us." Those days of traveling places to play games are gone, but a property from about the same by-gone era, the recently revived Teen Titans comic book franchise, will try to bring the arcade-style button-masher glory days back. Just because it's an old idea, it isn't necessarily a bad one.

In Teen Titans, you and three of your superhero chums can team up to bring justice to lawless enemies of freedom ... or, to put it another way, punch, pummel, kick, stomp, bash and blast your way through hordes of baddies. And that's about it: a very simple romp through about 15 missions with basic goals and boss fights. Uncomplicated? Absolutely. Shallow? Maybe a little. Unsatisfying? Well, that depends on what you're looking for.

Teen Titans is for folks who want a few hours of back-to-basics scraptastic combat, with a few special knick-knacks to sweeten the mix. Of course, you'll get to play as any of the five comic book Titans from the popular anime-style Cartoon Network show, so Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Cyborg and Starfire - all of whom appear on-screen at once.

That means at least one will always be computer-controlled, though you can issue simple "behavior commands" to get them to work with the rest of the team. There are also some ten unlockable characters taken directly from the show that you can use in the Master of Games mode. That's a separate game mode in which players can fight against each other for a change.

In this next-gen-crazy, modern day with its branching storylines, non-linearity and moral decision making, there's definitely room for a classic press-the-attack-button-as-fast-as-you-can game. Let's see if Teen Titans can live up to that legacy.